Tharn was back with the map a few minutes later, and he unfolded it on the ground in front of them. The map was slightly colored and made with a thick paper that prevented its deterioration, and although its dimensions were quite large, it was the perfect kind of map to bring on a trip.

“So, this is Barcombe.” Tharn pointed to a little picture of three houses stuck together with the name Barcombe handwritten just below. To the east of the village stood the forbidden forest, and actually, the forest continued on almost half of the west edge of the map before being replaced by pictograms of mountains.

“The caravan you’re taking tomorrow came from the south. It usually stopped at the likes of Prakia and Sronio before coming here.” Tharn continued, sliding his fingers along the multitude of villages along the forest. “And then it continues forward until Amul.” The ranger indicated the village at the location where the forest turned into mountains. “From this village onwards, it branches off to the east and reaches the capital.” Tharn finished his explanation by pointing to somewhere out of the map.

“Thanks for the information.” Mahon nodded. He then indicated the little numbers written below thin arcs that linked some of the cities together. “And I imagine those are the time needed to go from one village to another?”

“Yes, it’s the travel time. It’s an old merchant map, so there is a lot of such information written in there, but that was the best map I got that fit your criteria, so…”

“Don’t worry, it’s exactly what we wanted.” Mahon reassured the ranger.

“So the next village is only three hours away from here.” Jorik mused out loud as he checked the map.

“Hahaha! No, it’s not three hours away. It’s three days away.” Tharn laughed, and he didn’t notice the dumbfounded looks of the duo.

“Wait…” Mahon followed the road that linked all the villages together while calculating. “Then from here to Amul would take more than a month… Is this considering the speed with which we walked today?” Mahon tried to process how it was possible for a trip to be this long.

“What? No, no, the road doesn’t pass through the forest. It’s normal walking speed. Or caravan speed rather, it’s slightly faster on your own, but it’d just take you a bit over a month to go to Amul, anyway.”

The answer silenced the duo. “How.. How big is this?!”

“Yes, it’s quite impressive, right? The forbidden forest is larger than what one thought at first sight.”

Mahon silently thanked the ranger for misinterpreting his words. He had actually talked about this new world overall. They had just a part of the whole territory in front of their eyes, and it already took more than one month to cross it. They were talking about something thousands of times bigger than Ratho where everything was at least two days walk away.

The trip to the front lines was the longest they had walked, and it had just been topped off by their never ending escapade from the Amentiae. They thought themselves lost in the forest at first, failing to comprehend how it could be so big, but now that they were facing the truth, Mahon had trouble just imagining how big that was.

A territory this huge…

“Is everything alright?” Tharn finally asked, faced with their silence for a bit too long.

“Yes. Yes. It’s perfect.” Jorik promptly reassured the ranger.

They exchanged a bit more, but after less than half an hour the ranger went back to his home in the village, leaving Mahon and Jorik on their own in the barracks. It was already deep dark outside, and the two men laid down on the improvised beds they had made in their room from old mattresses.

A few minutes later, Mahon and Jorik saw each other in the still empty Nightmare. They walked a bit away from the spawning point, mostly out of Mahon’s habit, and found a nice resting place where Jorik quickly sat down on the ground and crossed his legs.

He didn’t close his eyes yet, however, and looked at Mahon instead.

“It’s way bigger than anything I would have ever imagined, even in my wildest attempts. It could take us months, or even years, to explore everything and get a good sense of what is actually happening there and how they don’t know about us and the Amentiae.”

“Yeah… Although we don’t need to explore everything to get a good grasp of where we are. And I refuse to even attempt to find a way back without taking the time to understand first. The very existence of this place challenges everything we know.”

“I know, I know.” Jorik sighed. “I just didn’t think it could take this long.”

“Why do you care?” Mahon asked. “You were left for dead in Ratho. You could stay here forever, and it wouldn’t matter.”

“No, I can’t. Ratho is… Ratho is incredible, and yet it’s rotting inside. I can’t abandon everything I invested in to save it. I can’t let people like Ravatoris suffocate it slowly to death.”

Mahon threw a glance at the noble sitting in poor shape in front of him. Everything else had abandoned him, and yet, he was still talking about changing things for the better in Ratho. Even if Mahon had been skeptical at first, he had to admit Jorik wasn’t the noble he had pictured.

He had his bad sides, obviously, but to grasp onto his goal even in this situation, Mahon couldn’t unsee that he had judged Jorik too harshly. He had discarded every promise of a better world from the noble as manipulation attempts, but there was none of that, right here, right now.

“Don’t you think it’s time to change your plans? Imagine if this world is as incredible as it seems. People living peacefully without war. No Nightmare. No Amentiae. Almost unlimited resources. Happy, simple men and women. If there are as many people as the size suggests, it would be a piece of cake to destroy the Amentiae forever and free Ratho.”

A silence welcomed Mahon’s words as Jorik looked in the distance, clearly thinking over it. He didn’t take too long before he looked back at him. Mahon knew the noble must have thought about it beforehand as he did. It was the first thing that had come to Mahon’s mind since they discovered Ratho wasn’t alone.

“You’re right. I don’t think it’ll be that simple, but it doesn’t change the fact that you’re right. I’m surely considered dead in Ratho by now, and that already threw a dent in my plans. Whether I’m away for a few months or a couple of years wouldn’t change things too much. And I can’t ignore the golden opportunity there.”

“So we agree on the next phase? Follow the caravan up to the main city and learn everything we can about this place. It’ll take months to reach it, but by then we should have a pretty good idea of what we can expect for the future of both worlds.”

Jorik acquiesced. “Yes. Also let’s try to be discreet not to draw the ire of something we can’t fight off with just the two of us by talking thoughtlessly about Amentiae.”

“Or even Ratho, in case the Amentiae are actually shielding us from a worse threat.” Mahon joked, and Jorik chuckled at the thought.

“I’ll meditate now. And tomorrow we’ll start a whole new kind of life.”

Mahon nodded and left Jorik behind to move deeper into Nightmare and up to his usual meditation spot. There, he practiced his spear exercises with the same diligence he did for the past twenty years. Even though he was much more proficient in them in Ratho by now, he couldn’t deny the feeling of appeasement each time he did them in Nightmare.

Once done, he meditated until he felt the sun rays heating his body in Ratho and left the dreamy world. The sun was rising in the horizon, and through the small window Mahon admired the foreign landscape.

The hundreds of colored roofs shone slightly under the sun, and Mahon observed from afar the people living on this side of the world slowly wake up and start their day. A little breeze created waves through the different fields around the village. The golden, green, red or violet crops peacefully swirling echoed the shining colored roofs of the village and helped create a calm and beautiful atmosphere.

Soon, Mahon noticed a group of people heading their way. He recognized the four rangers that had found them in the forest two days before, and he slightly pushed Jorik with his feet.

“Time to wake up. The rangers are coming our way.”

Jorik grumbled something unintelligible, but he soon pushed the blanket aside and stood up. A few minutes later, the duo had finished dressing up and packing their few belongings, and the rangers entered inside the barracks.

“They’re awake!” Meriel got to them first, and Mahon could swear he saw a flash of disappointment in her eyes. He then realized she was carrying a bucket of water.

Did she want to wake us up?

Mahon grinned at her, happy that he woke up on his own before she came here.

“Oh, you brought some water? Thank you!” He grabbed a nearby cup and reached inside the bucket to quench his thirst while smiling innocently at the woman.

She pouted back, and Artur burst out laughing just behind her, having witnessed the entire scene.

“I get it you guys are feeling way better.” Tharn threw a knowing look at him. “No more hallucinations?”

“Yeah, it’s all gone. Thank you for helping us through this.” Mahon played along easily. “Actually, uh… we need to come back home, now.”

“Oh, so, now you realize how dumb you were.” The burly man taunted.

“Tomas, behave please.” Tharn immediately scolded him while looking towards Mahon with a hint of fear in his eyes.

Mahon felt sorry to incite such a reaction from the easy-going, old man, but he more than understood his worries with the clarifications of yesterday’s discussion. If he too believed that the whole forest was deadly poisonous, and he saw people strolling through it like it was nothing, he would have the same prudent reaction as Tharn. Make sure they leave happy the quickest you can.

He made a small gesture with his hand to reassure Tharn they hadn’t any hostile intentions, and the old man nodded back ever so slightly.

“So where do you go back to?” Meriel chimed back in the conversation.

“We’re from the capital.” Jorik answered as Mahon took a bit too long to come up with a good excuse to dodge the question. His voice wasn’t the one Mahon had been used to during the past days, but it wasn’t completely alien to Mahon.

“Really?” A spark seemed to ignite in Meril’s eyes. “You’re from Lakefield? The Thousand Lakes City?”

“Yes.” Jorik answered without missing a beat.

He straightened his posture, and Mahon witnessed a bit of the old Jorik, the nobleman, come back to life after days relegated to the backstage. The personage stuck perfectly to him, and just with that single answer, Jorik managed to carry decades of arrogance and power.

Meriel hid a grimace of disgust, and she glanced quickly at Mahon before simply staying here without saying anything.

“Actually. You mentioned before we’re in Barcombe, aren't we?” Jorik continued his act.

“Yes.” Tharn answered, his face conflicted between pretending to be bored by having to deal with nobles and the fact he knew Jorik was just acting and was actually much more scary than a young, stupid noble. At least, from Tharn’s perspective. Should he know the truth, he would have reacted quite differently.

“It’s the biggest village at the edge of the forbidden forest if I remember correctly.” Jorik insisted on the word ‘village’, as if it was beneath him to even be in such a place. “There should be numerous caravans going through here. I’m sure we could join one easily and go back, Mahon.”

Jorik mentioned it as if he had just thought about it right now. The noble’s act played perfectly his role as it both confirmed to the other rangers they had been hallucinating before as well as pushing them not to interact with Mahon and Jorik, for they were nobility.

The look of curiosity and eagerness from the three younger rangers quickly turned to boredom as soon as they started to get a better picture of the situation, and they tried to sneak away and let Tharn deal with the troublesome duo of idiots that they had saved from the deadly forest.

“You’re lucky.” Tharn said with an innocent smile. “It happens that there is actually a caravan leaving Barcombe today. And I think they might very well go up to the capital. We’ll guide you to it right now, if you want.”